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EULOGY 

PRONOUNCED IN PROVIDENCE, JULY 17, 1826, 

UPON THE CHARACTERS OF 

JOHN ADAMS AND THOS. JEFFERSON, 

O 
aate WvmtitntH of ti)e mmuyi <Statw, 

BT REDDEST OF THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES. 



»V J. L. TILUITGBAST. ESQ. 



Ptrobitrena: 

MlLLt^ & Grattan, Printers, 12, Market-Square. 

3 826. 



GIFT 

ESTATE or 
'LLlAiVi C. RiVEt 






Providence, July 17th, 1826. 
The Committee of arrangements for the commemoration of the deaths of 

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, tender to Joseph L. Tillujghast, Esft. 

their thanks for his elegant, appropriate, and impressive Eulogy, this day 

delivered, and request of him a copy for the press. 

WILLIAM LARNED, 
WHEELER MARTIN, 
NATHANIEL SEARLE. 



Providence, July 17th, 1826. 
Gentlemen — Regretting that the performance of which you are pleased to 
speak in terms so flattering is not more worthy of those terms and of the oc- 
casion, I yet feel bound to place it at your disposal. 

I am, respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 
To William Larnep, Esq. JOSEPH L. TILLINGHAST. 

Wheeler Martiu, Esq. 
Nathan^iez. Seable, Esq. 



EULOG7. 



We have never met, we probably never shall 
meet, upon an occasion so affectingly interest- 
ing as this: a host of associations give to it a sub- 
lime pathos, a deep and dread solemnity that dis- 
turbs, yet in some degree delights, the soul. Mys- 
terious and religious awe mingles with heroic recol- 
lections — the darkness of sorrow, and the grave, 
seem irradiated with strange and ravishing glories. 
Amazement — solemnity — almost superstition — seem 
to lock up the sources of thought, and deny to 
the tongue its office. Scarcely have the sounds of 
festivity died upon our ears, scarcely have the tu- 
mults of gratitude and joy, of triumph and of jubi- 
lee, subsided in our hearts, when we are again call- 
ed to the temples of our God, surrounded by the 
sad symbols of mourning, to commune amongst our- 
selves, before Him, upon the signal, the mysterious- 
ly repeated, work of death ! Yes, while the pomp 
of processions brightened our whole land with splen- 
dour; while the voice of eloquence was proclaim- 
ing the toils, the trials, the steadfast virtue, the glo- 
rious victory, of the assertors of our Independence;— 
even then, when the air of our hemisphere shook with 



national peals, and with shouts of patriotic rapture, 
the Angel of Death, swift, silent and unseen, passed 
through it, to perform the high behest of God. He 
smote once — he smote twice — and the gifted spirits 
of Adams and Jefferson — which would seem to 
have lingered for that august moment to depart 
together — were translated. Those names, which 
stand for so much human worth — for so much in- 
tellectual power — for so much of the history and 
glory, not only of this nation, but of the human 
race — those names, which, in the morning of our 
heroic day, were united in the generous pursuit of 
the same common cause — which, afterwards, were 
separated and opposed to each other by the agi- 
tations of a storm that shook two continents — 
which, in the tranquillity of a succeeding age, 
were again blended on the tongue of public 
gratitude, and interchanged in offices of friend- 
ly correspondence, — have now, by the striking, 
the scarcely credible coincidence — I had almost 
said unity, of their triumphant flight, become 
consecrated upon one and the same tablet of won- 
derful story; and indissolubly and delightfully 
united for immortality. 

What is there in the civil history of this world — 
what is there that an overwrought imagination, un- 
supported by the actual event, could suggest, to 
equal the simple and subduing dignity of the facts 
we are contemplating.^ The heart feels, it per- 
ceives, it acknowledges, more than language has 
the means of expressing. It exults in the manifes- 



tations of Overruling Power. It triumphs in the 
connection of mortal destinies with the immortal 
designs of a benign Omnipotence. In the midst of 
weeping, it resolves and rejoices to believe that the 
slight silver cord which still held our venerable 
benefactors to the scene of their past glory, was 
touched,'and severed, at the just and most accepta- 
ble moment, by the very finger of their Father and 
their God. Their last thoughts were not occupied 
like those of Caesar, with the care to fall with dig- 
nity. They cast that care upon him in whose 
hands was the breath of their nostrils. They fell 
not like Epaminondas, sternly rejoicing in a victory 
fatal to all but the fame of his country. They wit- 
nessed both the fame and the felicity of theirs. The 
day which rounded the circle of fifty years from 
that on which they had produced the immortal de- 
claration that their country was, and of right ought 
to be, a nation — the day of that nation's first great 
jubilee, marked by prosperity and freedom and 
honour, signalized by gratitude and joy, had arri- 
ved. They heard the inspiring echoes that an- 
nounced its dawn. They saw the children's children 
of those who were children with them, mingling in 
the manly array of a virtuous population, celebrating 
the sources of national happiness and glory. They 
knew that their own names were on the tongues of 
their countrymen. The thoughts, the hearts of 
twelve millions of freemen were, at the same mo- 
ment, concentrated upon them. What was there 
more to wait for ?— A place had been assigned th^m 



in the order of celebration, and a respectful sum- 
mons had reached them to be present at the Capitol 
of the empire they had elevated and adorned and 
assisted to save. But a summons of more awful 
import, the Fiat of the Most High, had sped to call 
them, with humble faith let us say, to another and 
a better country. It was not for them to be borne 
with the honours of common greatness, upon the 
tide of an admiring crowd. But their soaring 
spirits, almost without a figure it may be said, were 
wafted to heaven upon the acclamations of a free 
and mighty nation. Thus to die, in possession of 
the still clear and unclouded ray of intellect; wit- 
nesses of the consummation of all that their youthful 
spirits had hoped to achieve and to witness — in the 
midst of an august commemoration which told them 
that all was accomplished — that they had triumphed 
in time and forever — that their labours were felt and 
repaid in the happiness and gratitude of their spe- 
cies — thus to depart, re-united, reconciled, and 
companions in their passage from these triumphs of 
time to those of eternity — was a consummation which, . 
however they might have been inspired to wish for 
as possible, they could hardly have hoped as proba- 
ble. Distant posterity will with difficulty believe 
that it was so. But let us, in whose day it has taken 
place, improve it for the confirmation of our faith, 
for our encouragement and consolation. Let us 
discard the cold calculations of chance. Let us 
be willing to see in it the manifestation of the 
same Divine Providence without whose aid the 



9> 

Pilgrims had perished, without whose cloud, ol'teu 
and almost obviously thrown about him, our Wash- 
ington had died upon the scaffold : whose Eye 
marks out a course for the examples of human kind, 
surrounds them with a felicity of circumstances' 
that may stimulate successive emulation, and ac- 
commodates their destinies to the grandeur of the 
designs for which He moulded their characters. 
Let us see in it the assurance, that while we cherish' 
the principles upon which, under his Divine appro- 
bation, this newly risen empire was founded, He 
will still make himself known to us, and stay us 
with his staff, and comfort us with his countenance. 
It is singular that the dieaths of so many of the 
most distinguiished founders of our independence 
should have taken place at periods which they 
would", perhaps, themselves have selected as most 
felicitous. Franklin lived to see the establishment? 
of his philosophy, and of his country — he saw, too, 
the effulgent morning of Gallic freedom, of which 
he had also been the distinguished pioneer, and' 
died undisturbed by a glimpse of the disaster^ 
which there ensued upon the departure from his 
sage principles and precepts. Washington, after a 
race of unequalled glory, died at the head, again, 
of the American armies, having seen successfully) 
maintained that proclamation of neutrality upon 
which he believed the salvation of his country had 
dependedj and into which he had thrown the whole 
weight of his august character. Adams and Jeffer- 
son, with the sagacity of statesmen, might desire a 
2 



10 

long experiment — such they have enjoyed. Blest 
with a patriarchal length of days, which seemed, 
in their persons, to connect posterity with antiquity, 
witnessing the undisturbed operations of the prin- 
ciples of a free government upon a generation en- 
tirely new, and over populous regions whose whole 
history is subsequent to their establishment, they 
have departed satisfied and assured ; leaving us 
experienced and not inglorious in our own applica- 
tion of those principles : While the very shouts 
that ascended with them to the skies, were repeat- 
ing to them the convictions of their own hearts, 
that the foundations of the American empire are 
firm as the rocky bases of the Alleghanies, its 
resources exhaustless as the floods of the Missis- 
sippi, 

On this occasion you do not expect, nor would 
time permit me to ofTer a detailed account of 
even the most important events in the lives of these 
illustrious dead. But, indeed, what need have we 
of biographical details } The history of the age in 
which they lived is their biography. Their genius 
and their characters are stamped, with an indelible 
impression, upon the monuments and imperishable 
institutions of that age : — an age pregnant with im- 
provement — big with unexampled events — in com- 
parison with which the commotions of the Grecian 
Commonwealths and the conflicts of the Roman 
World, when estimated by the canons of legitimate 
glory, shrink into insignificance : — an age not usher- 
ed in by earthquakes, nor foreshown by portents in 



11 

the skies — but prepared and announced by prodi- 
gies of more significant augury — by the birth of a 
race of men whose souls seemed filled with a larger 
portion of that divine force which should fit them 
for its great occasions — while the magnitude and 
exigencies of those occasions would, with recipro- 
cal agency, add strength and hardihood to the 
characters called to grapple with them. 

Till a late period, even after provocation had 
in some instances roused resistance, most of the 
colonists still loved to consider England, like the 
Palestine of dispersed Israel, the home of their 
origin and of their possible return. This relique of 
pious affection, and the negligent provision of learn- 
ed institutions here, made it a common desire of 
fathers to send the sons of their hopes home to En- 
gland for education. Happily, neither Adams nor 
Jefferson were subjected to this transportation. 
They had but one home, and it was here. Their 
undivided hearts knew but one country, and it was 
this. The stamina of their souls, as well as of their 
frames, were purely and wholly American. From 
infancy, their bosoms inhaled health and freedom 
among the hills, the streams and forests of their na- 
tive land. Receiving academical honours, the one 
at Harvard, the other at William and Mary — exer- 
cising the native resources and activity which dis- 
tinguish minds destined to control or enlighten 
other minds, they overcame all the obstacles to 
knowledge, and were each, at an early age, among 
the most learned of their day. 



12 

The descent of Adams was direct from the Pilgrim 
stock : and if spirits have inheritable qualities, he 
surely was an instance. Those original and unbend- 
ing traits which marked that high souled race for 
daring enterprise and searching trial — their uncon- 
querable perseverance — their simple grandeur, self- 
supplied and self-upheld — their undaunted reliance 
upon internal resource and never failing Providence, 
were his. They might be distinctly traced as sour- 
ces of his greatness and of his various fortunes. 
}i\s was all their lofty enthusiasm — their humble 
Jind affecting piety. His was their intrepid recti- 
tude of heart, above disguise, unable to comprehend 
its uses, impatient at witnessing, but incapable of 
fearing it. To all their love of science and hatred 
of oppression, be added intellectual vision that 
took in a wider horizon, an ardour for improvement 
that embraced the human race. It was the delight 
of his youth to study and compare the finest and 
freest forms of government which the world had yet 
seen reduced to practice. In the simple structure 
of the ancient commonwealths and in the theoreti- 
cally balanced forces of the British Constitution, 
he saw much to admire and cherish. But his mind 
perceived and dwelt upon a system in which liberty 
might more largely respire, and anarchy on the 
one hand, and despotism on the other, be more 
faithfully excluded. The works which in later 
years he published — his defence of the American 
Constitutions, a treatise admired and feared in Eu- 
rope for the originality and irrefutable truth of its 



13 

arguments — his Thoughts on Government, — his tri- 
umphant argument against British Impressments — 
indeed, all the political writings which patriotism or 
official duty have called from him, are replete with 
evidence that deep and un relaxing reflection upon 
the principles of Government and of human nature 
must have mingled with the earliest habits of his 
mind, shaping the very germs of youthful thought. 
Devoting himself to the profession of the Law, he 
cultivated Eloquence, both as necessary to pro- 
fessional success, and to the influence which he 
wished to employ to repel the attempts upon the 
rights of the Colonies. And when, at the bar, or in 
Fanueil Hall, his voice was raised for right, or as- 
sailed the cstabHshments of power, his eloquence 
partook of the great elements of his character : — 
it was bold, rapid, vehement, deep ; — studying, 
staying for, no ornament : — like the great cata- 
ract, whose rainbows are but bright drops dashed 
from a sweep of force which wears away rocks. 
With a prophet's eye he saw the dark and stormy 
scenes through which lay the path of his country 
to her bright destiny ; and feeling that his post 
ought to be that of decisive action, he declined the 
honorable station of Chief Justice of the Colony, to 
which at an early age he was appointed. Repre- 
senting the town of Boston in the provincial assem- 
bly for several years previous to the commence- 
ment of the great struggle, with all the fervour of 
faith and the fire of genius, he assisted to cheer and 
sustain his constituents for the conflict. At this pe- 



14 

riod an incident of his life stands out in beautiful 
relief, and marks a character of more than Roman 
firmness : It is his defence of the soldiers charged 
with the murder of the unhappy men who fell in 
what is called the Boston massacre of 1770. When 
Cicero was called to the defence of his friend, a 
man, too, of power and iniluence, from a similar 
charge in Rome, the clamours of a disapproving 
populace shook the firmness that had saved the 
" eternal city" — his tongue faltered, and his friend 
was banished. But Adams did not falter. In vain 
were political standing and popular favour sug- 
gested as motives to desist. In vain was private 
friendship anxious that he should avoid the . 
peril of his future prospects. Inflexible in ad- 
herence to the high principles of his profession; un- 
compromising upon a question of justice ; knowing 
that the right to a full and fair trial was one of the 
dearest for which his country ought to contend ; he 
could not listen to the voice of private friendship 
against the call of a great public duty. And popu- 
lar favour, dear as it was to his heart, and valuable 
for his purposes, he asked not at the expense of in- 
dependent principle. He spoke with the same abili- 
ty he had exerted for freedom. The acquittal of 
the prisoners was a memorable triumph of American 
justice. Their advocate soon regained his popu- 
larity with increased confidence in his manly prin- 
ciples. He was elected a member of the Gover- 
nor's council — but the Governor (Gage) paid to his 
patriotism and his influence a merited compliment} 



15 

in refusing to sanction the election. Meantime the 
signs of the coming times were gathering on every 
hand ; a beacon hght had broke forth from a sister 
colony : — the noise of preparation increased — the 
decisive blow was struck. The smoke of that 
blood-offering of Freedom which was to awaken na- 
tions to tempestuous conflict and sever more than 
one mighty Empire, ascended from the turf of Lex- 
ington. But though aflected by the deeper gloom 
and awful realities that had arrived, the counte- 
nance of Adams was seen to brighten with pride 
and joy, that his countrymen had faced the British 
fire — had returned it — had driven their assailants 
back to their barracks with loss and shame. Thence- 
forward, the theme of his thoughts and efforts was 
unconditional separation. The suggestion of Inde- 
pendence, which had been made to a member of 
Congress by Greene, the hero of Rhode-Island, 
touched the very chord of his soul which was reai 
dy to sound that note throughout America. When 
all was ripe for the august act he with salutary sa- 
gacity, yielded to a distinguished delegate from the 
great state of Virginia, Richard Henry Lee, the 
honour of proposing it in Congress. He seconded 
the motion. He made it his province to see that it 
should pass. During the twenty-four days that it 
was pending, he urged it with his resistless elo- 
quence and commanding influence, in public debate, 
in private conversation, strengthening the boldest, 
encouraging the cautious, disarming the dark and 
gloomy period of its terrors, pourtraying the hope?!; 



1& 

the supports, the splendouis thai must ensue. No 
mind was more deeply impressed with the magni- 
tude of the measure, its consequences upon other 
nations, its titles to everlasting commemoration in 
our own. Aware of what it would cost to maintain it, 
looking, undismayed, through the dark and troubled 
means, his eye was intensely fixed, with the confi- 
dence of inspiration, upon the glorious end. His 
political sagacity and science, his powers of per- 
suasion, his enthusiastic activity marked him as a 
proper instrument to acquire for his country the 
sympathy of the good, the aid and alliance of the 
great. For her he traversed the Atlantic as one of 
thoee illustrious commissioners who appeared in 
Europe, the heralds to the old world of the resplen- 
dent constellation which had risen in the horizon 
of the new. To that constellation he directed the 
eyes of philosophers and statesmen, as to the light 
and hope and promise of the universe. The lead- 
ing courts of Europe felt and acknowledged his elo- 
quence. In the alliance of France he but assisted 
— that of Holland was his sole work. But the joy 
of his soul was full, when, with his associates, he 
signed the provisional and definitive treaties with 
Great Britain, by which peace was restored to his 
country with an unconditional recognition of its in- 
dependent rights. He was the first American who, 
ceasing to be a subject, spoke to the head of the 
British Empire as the representative of an equal 
nation. In that court where his name had been de- 
nounced as a rebel, face to face with majesty, in a 



IT 

conversation worthy the dignity of the situation, he 
received from the British King an acknowledge- 
ment of his upright and patriotic sentiments, with 
a pledge of respect for the nation that trusted him. 
The honours which his countrymen successively in 
the fulness of time conferred upon him, proved the 
depth of their affection and their estimate of his 
wisdom: — honours, by the side of which the splen- 
dours of courts and coronets and crowns, brighten- 
ing the crests of their accidental possessors, fade 
like the tapers of a revel in the beams of morning. 
The world has as yet prepared no station of digni- 
ty for the illustrious of our race that can compare 
with the Presidency of this great, free, intelligent 
nation ; — none that supposes so much acknowledged 
greatness of mind, so pure and tried an integrity, 
:30 many public services and benefactions. Yet this 
fortunate man, living to repeat his high fortunes in 
the person of an illustrious and affectionate descend- 
ant, may be said twice to have enjoyed, with equally 
vivid perception, tUis supreme dignity; and proba- 
bly the latter enjoyment has been fraught with 
more pure and unalloyed delight than the former. 
He has felt the tide of honour flowing back to him 
from his posterity, and lived to inherit glory from 
his heir. 

The imagination can hardly rest upon an object of 
sublimer interest than an American President, re- 
tired from his high station, to participate, with the 
perfect equality of a citizen, in the private conse- 
quences of the events he has caused or controlled, 
3 



1^ 

(Consecrated by the associations of departed power 
and tested worth, he stands amongst his fellow men 
the noble image of republican simplicity, suggesting 
to the imagination all that is grand in act or sublime- 
ly delightful in repose. Such was the Sage who madie 
the shades of Quincy the scene of his continued 
usefulness, and the resort of a reverential pilgrim- 
age of his countrymen. The fervour of his mind 
and heart was still poured forth in benefactions. 
Blest with the means of good, he did not spare the 
tise. His munificence stimulated public improve- 
ilierits and aided in the erection of temples to his 
God. His private charity, prompted and directed 
by the pure precepts of Christianity, sought out and 
relieved the children of distress. Gratified by the 
continued testimonials of his fellow citizens, whom 
he regarded and affectionately blessed, rather as 
his children, — nominated for Governor of his na- 
tive state, and elected to preside over the counsels 
that reformed her constitution, he yet declined to 
participate again in political action. Not that his 
mind had lost the excitements of patriotic interest: 
Those who visited him nearly at the termination 
of his course*, found him still ready to kindle at the 
spirit-stirring themes of the revolution — still cher- 
ishing his primeval fire under the snows of time. 
But he had witnessed the stability of his country's 
glory; — he had contributed his great and illustrious 
shai*e of human action ; — he humbly believed his 
peace was made with heaven— and with patient 
hope he waited for heaveil's will to be done upon his 
decaying body. The will of heaven has been done. 



19 

The mind of Jefferson, was a rare combination of 
mild, but great and useful qualities. With a heart 
deeply susceptible to the happiness and misery of his 
species, he early devoted himself to the studies 
that might empower his mind to ameliorate the one 
and advance the other. Philanthropy and Philoso- 
phy were the benign powers upon whose altars he 
sacrificed with youthful ardour; and Patriotism 
and Politics were, in his regard, but included por- 
tions of those great leading principles of his soul. 
In the silence of solitary study, aided by few and 
imperfect lights, his capacious mind loved to inves- 
tigate the wonderful works of the Creator, to range 
through the history of man in all his revolutions and 
relations, to master his secret springs of action and 
the sources of his good and evil. Eloquence was 
his, yet not so much of the tongue as of the pen. 
He uttered to the eye his high toned thoughts, 
through the medium of a style remarkable lor the 
elegance, the rich flow of music and beauty, the 
inspiring loftiness, of its expression. But just arri- 
ved to the age of manhood he was seated in the 
legislature of Virginia; and the great alterations in 
the institutions of that state, changing them to a more 
purely republican character, are principally attri- 
butable to him. Summoned from these favourite 
and congenial labours of legislation, by the agita- 
tions of the country, and the call of Patriotism for 
the choicest taleots of tlie land, his exertions, his 
animated appeals, were adequate to the occasion. 
With a reputation already matured, he entered the 



continental congress one year previous to the agita-^ 
lion of that momentous question which has em* 
balmed his name with its own immortality. Un- 
practised in debate, but prompt, fertile and judicious 
in the committee room, his salutary vigour was felt 
at the springs of action. When we look back 
upon the great transactions of these times, the 
mind must be impressed with gratitude for the very 
differences and oppositions of character, talent^ 
sentiment and education, which combined in one 
enthusiasm of purpose, and were adapted by those 
differetjces to each distinct part in the one sublime 
whole. The committee appointed to announce to 
the world, with becoming dignity, the principles 
and motives upon which a new nation, that should. 
be among the mightiest, was to advance into the 
order of empires, were Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, 
Sherman and Livingston. When will the world 
again see such a combination of talent and charac- 
ter discussing such a theme ? It is one of those 
sublimities which nature produces perfect, and 
but once ! This committee selected Adams and 
Jefferson for the draught of a Declaration. Each 
of these magnanimously preferred the other for the 
task — but Adams prevailed with the Chairman, the 
master of so felicitous a pen — and Jefferson per- 
formed it. Charmed with his production, the 
committee without altering a word reported it to 
Congress. There, besides some minor alterations, 
two of its eloquent passages were omitted. One 
from prudent deference to the feelings of the South 



21 

—the other probably for brevity. The first is that 
indignant clause in which the introduction, by 
Great Britain, of African Slavery into the colonies 
is assigned as one of the oppressions exercised 
upon this country. Singular as it may seem, this 
Native of Virginia, rising above the prejudices that 
surrounded him, and generously alive to the suffer- 
ings of man, of whatever complexion, under what- 
ever pretext, was the first known writer in the 
English language who denounced the African Slave 
trade as a piratical warfare against human nature : 
and by inserting the sentiment in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, he would have sanctioned it 
among the original principles of our government. 
Happily he lived to see it adopted by the Legislature 
of the Union, in that statute which pronounces this 
detestable traffic piracy. The other passage omit- 
ted contains that proud but pathetic allusion to what 
might have been the British Empire, but for the 
infatuation of the rulers and people of England ; 
"We might have been a free and a great people 
" together ; but a communication of grandeur and 
" freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it 
" so, since they will have it. The road to happi- 
" ness and to glory is open to us too. We will 
" climb it apart from them, and acquiesce in the 
"necessity which denounces our eternal separa- 
" tion." With little other variation, and subscribed 
by the heroic men who had already avowed its 
sentiments and called for its production, this noble 
state paper went to the world as it came from the 



22 

hands of its author : and it remains, for the adraira-- 
tion of ages, a majestic monument of the truths of I 
freedom and of nature — of intrepid self-devotioQi! 
— of high-souled honour, pledged and redeemed ini 
its support : on which the oppressed of every chmej 
may read their rights, and the virtues which willl 
render them triumphant. 

When the South was becoming the troubled! 
theatre of war in which our Greene was to exhibitt 
the triumphs of Genius over Fortune, Virginia,, 
mindful of the exalted services of Jefferson, electedl 
him to succeed Patrick Henry as her Governor;; 
her confidence was not misplaced : in the darkest! 
period of the Southern war, she was repaid by thej 
resources of his mind and the constancy of his> 
heart. But the mind of this great man still found^ 
time to cultivate science, and to make that science* 
subservient to his country's honour. His notes oai 
Virginia advanced the literary reputation of Ameri- 
ca, and by triumphant argument and eloquence, 
and science, with which Europe was enriched and! 
instructed, refuted her calumny against the animal 
productions of the new world. Besides the greati 
concern of civil liberty, his thoughts were bent! 
upon the establishment of perfect liberty in th«i 
affairs of religion. He revolted from the absurdi- 
ties as well as the cruelties of that bigotry which,, 
whether by tortures or disqualifications, would 
mould the spirit of one man by the faith of another; 
Emulating the great example of Roger Williams,, 
he drew up that clear and eloquent declaration osfi 



23 

religious freedom which, in 1786, was enacted by 
the Legislature of Virginia : and with little varia- 
tion it became the form in which our own state has 
chosen to clothe that glorious principle which she 
was the first to practice and proclaim to the world. 
Former examples may justify the remark that 
republics are ungrateful — but this republic has 
shewn herself an exception to all the maxims that 
derogate from the beauty of freedom. To her 
pubhc serv ants she has not been, she will not be, 
ungrateful — nor did she forget the many titles of 
this distinguished individual to her respect and 
gratitude. In all the gradations of her public 
trusts, from the time he appeared her minister in 
France, till he relinquished the executive sway 
over her enlarged territory, she continued to repay 
with confidence the philanthropy and zeal with 
which he laboured for human happiness. When 
he had retired from the commotions and conflicts 
of political life, his benevolent activity still found 
objects worthy of its^mployment. The University 
of Virginia, reared by his auspices and exertions^ 
is a signal instance of his ardour for the intellectu- 
al advancement of the youth of his country. His 
own dilapidated walls witness that generous flow 
of hospitality and charity which drained the foun- 
tain while it cheered the surrounding regions. 
That he was left to a moment's apprehension of 
pecuniary distress, is a painful and humiliating 
I consideration. Yet it served to give to his closing 
eyes an afTecting proof of the reverence of his 



24 



countrymen, and ot the generous sjmpatliies with 
which they were hastening to make smooth his 
patriarchal pillow. But he was not left to the 
ministrations of human sympathy. By a sublime 
dispensation he has been suddenly, and with unim- 
paired dignity, provided for forever. 

To compare the respective merits of these illus- 
trious men, their peculiar traits of mind and heart, 
their points of difference and resemblance, might I 
be a pleasing, and, for some purposes, a profitable ' 
task. But neither would time now permit, nor is it I 
in any respect necessary for a distinct perception i 
of their separate and individual greatness. The 5 
character of each has sufficient materials for glory;'! 
there needs no light of contrast, much less the illus-^ 
tration of the one at the expense of the other.- 
Had each of them died when the Declaration ofi 
Independence was proclaimed at the cannon'si 
mouth as the voice of their country, they had each,i 
even then, done enough for fame and gratitude.^ 
The great events of their respective administra-^ 
tions, which form so interesting a part of thei 
history of this and other nations, it is the provinces 
of history to record. We are here to mourn thei 
dead, to call to mind their titles to our gratitude, to 
acknowledge the Divine Goodness in raising up 
such champions of our Israel, to muse upon the 
adorable displays of his Providence. 

But it may be asked, had these great men no faults ?^ 
To which I may reply, were they not men ? shall we 
reproach the vivifying sun for the ardour of hisi 



J.') 



beams J — or explore the beautiful vault of the sky for 
a vapour to carp at ? To say that the characteristic 
principles of action which 1 have noticed might at 
times, though guided by pure intentions, leave 
Fomething for the censure of their own after judg- 
ments, is but to say that they possessed the qualities 
which constitute their greatness and our pride, 
subject to the laws of humanity. Had it been 
otherwise, our sympathies must have ceased where 
our worship commenced. But let such as would 
" Draw their frailties from their dread abode, where 
they alike in trembling hope repose," remember, 
that it is the prerogative of virtue like theirs, that 
the tomb, which cannot contain its glory, closes 
upon its imperfections forever. 

Heaven seems to have marked these Patriots, 
rom their first meeting, for a course of coincidences 
as unexampled as brilliant. When they first met in 
congress, each, in the two distant and leading 
provinces, had been simultaneously active in the 
same great cause ; each had acquired similar per- 
sonal influence and sustained the same representa- 
tive character. When they met, they seemed 
intuitively to understand each other, and by their 
frank, explicit and heroic traits of character each^ 
to use the very expression of Adams, " seized upon 
the heart '^ of the other. This hold, early and 
strongly taken, seems never even under the most 
trying occurrences to have been relinquished by 
either. Even when competitors they appear not to 
have been enemies. Together in producing the 
4 



20 

acl of Independence ; together in the commisbion to 
Europe upon the return of peace ; together in the 
negociations there which marked out and guarded 
for our commerce its thousand paths around the 
globe; — together in the Prussian treaty, important 
for claiming and securing the freedom '^^ *!ie freight 
by the freedom of the ship; together ^ the first ad- 
ministration under the constitution, i ygether in the 
votes of electoral colleges for President and Vice 
President; together after their retirement in a corres- 
pondence of friendly reminiscences and anticipa- 
tions: — together in the sublime visitation of death; 
and together in the solemn commemorations of 
their country : — together honoured and together 
mourned. Even that great tempest which broke 
from Europe to agitate the remotest portions of the 
world — big with portents of strange and fiery as- 
pect ; that broke up the great deeps of the moral 
and political elements, shaking down the strong 
holds of opinion, and overwhelming the structures 
of time; that storm in which the friendship of Fox 
and Burke was wrecked forever — that, by the 
agitation of its waves, swept men from each other's 
yide before they were aware — though it threw for 
a time the two great lights of our hemisphere 
into opposite quarters of the horizon, yet did 
not dim the lustre of either, nor extinguish the 
secret warmth that each still cherished and 
preserved for mutual participation. It exhibit- 
ed them in a new and affecting position — as if 
horn to demonstrate the triumphant strength 



27 

of that noble structure which they had united to 
rear, under every species of trial to which it could 
be subjected : as if destined to prove each spring 
of power in the great machine, to ascertain and ex- 
hibit every modification of policy, that by combi- 
nation or selection might contribute to their coun- 
try's future welfare. And it may not be the least 
useful of the reflections awakened by their signal 
union in death, that their apparent differences must 
have flowed from the harmony of the great design for 
which they were created : that their successive as 
well as their united labours have been followed by 
prosperity and glory : that the judgements of short- 
sighted man cannot fathom the heart of his fellow, 
nor know how far it is enlightened and warmed by 
the approving smile of heaven. And if a relique of 
the bitterness of long past times could possibly have 
survived in any bosom till now, I would have said, 
here is the place to bury it. Let the heart that 
cherishes here surrender it a trophy for the two- 
fold tomb ; or rather, touched in that heart by the 
sacred light that descends in this august visitation, 
let the relique burn as a peace offering, and the 
illustrious spirits, new born in heaven, be refreshed 
by the sacrifice. 

There is another view in which the era of the trans- 
lation of these patriarchs is striking. It is the solemn 
termination of one great epoch of our Republic — 
it is the sublime commencement of another. From 
this point of elevation it throws forward the beams 
of a high and sacred augury over the future. The 



28 

years of a second Jubilee have begun their court.e 
Few of us may hope to see the completion of thai 
great circle of time : — ut it is the part of all of uA: 
to endeavour to render the distant day of its cole 
bration a day of unabated joy and pride to oui 
posterity. This we may do by cultivating the prin 
ciples, as we cherish the memories, of the illustri 
ous dead. This we may do by treasuring ir oin 
hearts the kindly feelings, the charities, the mi/tuai 
forbearance and the mutual encouragements to 
patriotism and honour, which this affecting occa- 
sion so emphatically suggests. And should dark 
ness cast its shadows across the bright career r^ 
our beloved country— should dangers gather aro jnd 
it to threaten its happiness, its glory, its indepen i 
dence, the fruit of so much greatness, defended by 
so much blood, guarded by the shades of so many 
sainted Patriots, protected by so much heavenly in- 
terposition—let us in the time of trial, look back 
upon the solemn auspices of our first jubilee— let us 
call to mind what God hath done, in life and in 
death, for these departed Patriarchs — let us put t ur 
trust in Him who gave to our fathers the triumph and 
the victory— and we shall triumph. 



89 

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